I don’t really understand Japanese culture – But I’m not going to write a whole entry about how nothing at all makes sense here because so what if making a whole school practice unicycles constantly in Australia would be more than a little twisted- there is nothing, seriously nothing, that beats the feeling of holding a six year olds hand as she steadies herself on a unicycle, it’s even better than the feeling of the same student taking your hand, leading you to the equipment shed and then trying to teach you to ride a unicycle, despite the fact that you’re in business clothes and can barely understand a word they say.
I have found the Japanese child I want to adopt though; the unicycling girl and her twin sister- Ako and Riko, completely identical except one wears glasses- even their teeth are identical. The left front tooth on both girls is poking out in the same way. When I left they all ran at me to shake my hands, and when I came back to say goodbye after my last class for the day, they all lunged at me to shake my hand, and I bent down to be on their level, and they swarmed – group hugged by twenty 6 year olds in a country where the adults never touch in public.
But that’s not that part that I don’t understand. No, Children are always 元気, no matter where they’re from, just like teenagers are always resistant. The part I don’t really get is the festivals- the bus-pulling, shrine carrying, impossible feats of strength broken-up with short breaks where everyone puts their shrine down, or stops dancing in the scorching heat, and sculls a beer, smokes a cigarette, or both.
So this weekend we got dressed in white pants, camel-toed shoes and happi-coats, and walked down to the local shrine. I was pretty wrecked from a big Friday night (this was Sunday morning) and we met with 20 men, of whom I was the youngest by far, and the tallest by quite a bit. And also, probably, the weakest. And we carried a shrine that could not have weighed less than half a ton through the town, to different parks, to the harbour, and past people’s houses and shops. Periodicially we’d run for 50 metres, or stop and bounce the shrine up and down (dislodging a section, which someone would have to pick up, climb up onto the shrine, and put back in, adding extra weight) there were two men at the front who drunk a lot during the lunchtime break, and they pushed back against us to slow us down, argued over which way to go (the route was largely unplanned) and would encourage us to run, and say things ranging from ‘are you alright?’ to ‘hey, ladies, are you dying yet?’ At one point one of the old drunk men touched me a little inappropriately, and at several times he slapped me on the shoulders, thinking it would be hilarious to hit me where it hurts.
And then afterwards, in true Japanese traditional, there was an all-you-can-eat, all-you-can-drink party. Well, technically there were two parties…one after the other.
And it’s happening again this weekend. Me, being a great cultural ambassador, will probably end up going. I want to, it was a great experience. Maybe this time I’ll be able to take photos (if not we were roped into another one happening in April) There’s a culture festival on as well, which will be my out if I’m still in a lot of pain. The bruises haven’t started to show yet, I’m just very tender…and may be driving for an hour to get Nick to register as a postal voter, and also to play volleyball in Shimanto. Yay for spreading myself a little thin!
Also, I’m spending a lot of time helping middle schoolers with speech contests, and I really want to do more, because sometimes sitting in the office on Facebook and typing up blog entries doesn’t really feel like work, y’know. Neither does Japanese study, though. JLPT in just under six weeks
